Jiānhùrén
by X-I-L2048
Summary: World War II has ended, but the world still has yet to heal. A visit to his young Chinese colony only reinforces this fact for England. Copious amounts of angsty family fluff.


England sighed as he waited for the small pot of water to boil on the stove, resting his bandaged hands gingerly on the counter. Out the open window above the sink, Victoria Harbor sparkled under the moonlight, deceptively calm and peaceful. Yes, the war was officially over, but the world was far from at peace.

The nation took the pot of now-boiling water and moved it off the heat, waiting for it to cool down a bit before pouring it into a teapot. He added a teabag and put the lid back on to let it seep, wandering into the adjacent room where Hong Kong lay tucked away under a blanket on the couch, snoring softly. England crouched down beside the couch, studying his little colony with a small, sad smile on his face as he shook his head ruefully.

"Too tired to stay awake even for tea," he observed softly, tucking the blanket securely around the small preteen's thin shoulders. "Never thought I'd see the day, lad. Don't blame you, though," he added, taking in the hollows in the boy's cheeks and the dark circles around his eyes. His face took on a stormy air as he stood up and left to pour himself a cup of the aforementioned tea.

While England had been primarily concerned with his and Europe's own problems during the latter half of the war, his thoughts had never been far from his beleaguered colonies in Asia. He'd heard horror stories about what the Japanese were doing there to the countries they invaded, and if even a fraction of it were true, it would still be dreadful. Even though there was much work to be done at home now that the Axis had surrendered and the fighting had stopped, it was his duty to make sure his colonies were recovering as best as they were able, and though his relationships with some of them were… strained… he made it a personal goal to visit every one of them as soon as he could.

England stiffly took a seat at the old, scratched kitchen table, the hot teacup cupped in his hands. His whole body ached, but that was nothing compared to his heart at the present moment. Contrary to what some people thought, he was not a pitiless bastard, and the state he'd found some of his colonies in was certainly enough to melt a harder heart than his. Some, like Australia and New Zealand, were alright for the most part, and his visits with them had gone well, all things considered. Others, though… like Singapore and now Hong Kong… They tried to put on a brave face for him, assured him that they were fine, but they were fooling no one, certainly not him.

He'd failed them. Oh, he knew he hadn't had much choice in the matter, when it came right down to it. Conservation of resources, winning the war in the long term and all that. But that didn't change the fact that they were still his responsibility, and he'd underestimated Japan badly, leading to England's having to outright _abandon_ them. It still ate at his mind some nights.

England sighed heavily again and raised the cooling cup of liquid to his lips to take a sip, but a soft whimpering sound from the other room made him quickly set it back down. He turned toward the doorway, and found Hong Kong huddled behind the door, half of his face peeking out at him from behind it. Silent tears were trickling down his face.

"Leon!" England was out of his chair in an instant, kneeling on the floor close to the boy. "Are you alright, lad? What happened?" He reached out to brush some of Hong Kong's unruly hair out of his face, but the boy flinched away, trembling, ducking his head to hide his face. England withdrew his hand quickly, mentally kicking himself.

"I… I… em…" Hong Kong began haltingly, dragging an arm across his eyes. "I'm fine." England raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry for bothering you. I'll just…" his voice broke slightly, and he turned to go. "I'll just go back to bed…"

"Leon, if you need me, you know I'm available, right?" England pressed, feeling rather awkward but not willing to let it go that easily. "Do you… want to talk about it?"

The boy seemed to consider this for a moment before he spoke, still facing away from England. "It hurt. Th-they were hurting me… Kiku was there, but… he wouldn't look at me. He wouldn't or couldn't stop them, I don't know which... I… I wanted you to… I had to see… I thought…" The colony's shoulders were shaking as he stumbled through his hesitant, disjointed explanation, and little wet spots started to appear on the floorboards.

"Oh, lad," England murmured, reaching out and putting his hands on the boy's shoulders, gently turning him to face him. Hong Kong stiffened at his touch, but didn't resist. "Hey. Look at me now." He tapped a finger under the boy's chin and Hong Kong hesitantly lifted watery eyes to meet his own. Something he saw there must have reassured him, because the next thing England knew, Hong Kong had thrown himself into his caretaker's arms, his arms tightly wrapped around his neck. England winced as old, unhealed wounds from the war protested the abuse, but he ignored them and returned the embrace as best he could, being careful of the boy's own healing injuries.

"I thought… I thought-!" Hong Kong sobbed quietly into the nation's shoulder, his voice muffled by his shirt.

"I know, Leon, I know," England replied, rubbing small circles into the child's back. "I'm so sorry." Hong Kong only hiccupped slightly and held on even tighter. After a moment, England shifted his grip, reached down, and scooped up the small colony in his arms. He walked over to the couch and sat down, gently wrapping the boy back in his blanket and settling him on his lap.

Hong Kong rested his head on England's shoulder and gave a small, contented sigh as the nation's arms settled around him again. "I'm glad you came back, Arthur," he said quietly, shyly.

"I am, too, lad," England replied with a small smile. "I am, too."

-0-0-0-

**This thing so did not want to be written, oh my goodness. Anyways, another drabble request fill finished, this time for omgrandomthings on DA, who asked for a "Haunt Me" drabble with two unspecified Hetalia characters. So I chose Hong Kong and England, because I really like Hong Kong and because England seems to worm his way into every Hetalia fic I write lately. .  
**

_**Notes and Headcanons**_

**- ****Jiānhùrén**** = Chinese for "guardian" (at least, that's what the online dictionary said; I'm not a native Chinese speaker by any means. I also would have preferred to use the Cantonese word, since Cantonese is the official language in Hong Kong along with English, but since I could not find a working English-to- Cantonese online dictionary, I had to use the Mandarin word instead.)  
- Hong Kong suffered terribly under the Japanese occupation from 1941- 1945. Its population shrunk from 1.6 million to 600,000 during that three years, and thousands of women were raped during that time as well.  
- While I don't think he's always the best at ****showing**** it, I think England does care to some extent about all his colonies, so hearing about and seeing what happened in the Pacific theater and not really being able to do anything about it weighed heavily on him.  
- "Leon" is Hong Kong's English name. "Ka Lung" is the properly Romanized form of his Cantonese one. He uses both interchangeably depending on who he's with. He is physically about 10-11 years old in this particular drabble.  
- As for the personal relationship between England and Hong Kong, I think it initially started off as rather awkward and rocky, given both countries' personalities and the circumstances that England acquired Hong Kong, but they eventually warmed up considerably to each other, and even today, 16 years after the handover of Hong Kong to China, 92% of Hong Kongers say they would rather go back to being a colony under British rule given the chance than continue being a Special Administrative Region under China.  
- The nightmare Hong Kong had essentially boils down to being hurt by the Japanese again while Japan stands by silently and England is nowhere to be found, basically signifying his fear of being abandoned by everyone who was supposed to care for or look after him. And about Japan himself in this, I am not of the opinion that a personified nation will always hold the same values and opinions as its people. Therefore, I don't hold to the rather common fanon consensus that he was personally going around raping and brutalizing all the conquered countries and colonies during World War II.**

Axis Powers Hetalia © Himaruya Hidakez


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